Knuckle Ball

When I was a kid, we went to see the Baltimore Orioles play about once a year.  That was about all that my dad could afford.  But we watched the orioles on TV most weekends.  I had a little transistor radio with a single earbud that I used for the west coast games.  I had to go to bed at eight o’clock, but my dad would let me listen to the baseball games as long as I was in bed.  In the early sixties, Baltimore had a relief pitcher named Hoyt Wilhelm.  He didn’t pitch very fast, and he wasn’t very clever, but he had a knuckle ball that was incredible.  Paul Richards, the manager of the orioles, would use Wilhelm in later innings as a relief pitcher.  “Old Sarge” as he was known as, would come into a game, and if the orioles had the lead, he was unstoppable.  The catcher, Gus Triandos, had a special catcher’s mitt with a 41” circumference to corral the knuckle ball.  When Old Sarge pitched his knuckle ball, batters just couldn’t tell where the ball would go.  But neither could Wilhelm or Triandos.  The knuckle ball was slow, but so deceptive that batters would swing at what they thought was an easy pitch only to find that they had struck out.  Hey, that’s how Satan deceives us.  He comes at us with his sucker pitch, and we fall for his trick every time.  Satan’s temptations are so slick and so enticing that we are fooled into ignoring God’s warnings.  Paul said in Galatians 6:7, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”  Just like batters thought Old Sarge’s slow-moving knuckle ball was an easy hit, we fall for Satan’s lies.  But don’t be deceived.  Satan will lie every time.  Trust God.  He will never let you down.